Privacy Statement

Effective date: July 1, 2026

1. Who we are

The Valuation Engineer Journal ("VEJ", "the journal", "we") is published by Pacific Vista Net of 242 Clifton Rd, Pacifica, CA. We are the data controller for personal data processed through this site.

For privacy-related questions or to exercise your rights under this notice, contact us at wbcraytor@valuation-engineer.com.

2. What personal data we collect

  • Account data — name, email, optional affiliation, ORCID iD, biographical statement, country, role (author / reviewer / reader).
  • Submission data — manuscripts, figures, abstracts, supplementary files, and metadata you submit; plus messages exchanged during the editorial workflow.
  • Editorial activity — submission, review, and editorial decisions; comments and timestamps from the workflow.
  • Web-server data — IP address, browser/user-agent, requested URL, referrer, and timestamps, recorded automatically in server logs.
  • Cookies — a session cookie (OJSSID or similar) to keep you logged in. No advertising or cross-site tracking cookies are used.

We do not intentionally collect special-category data (health, religion, etc.). If your submission contains such data, you remain responsible for disclosing it lawfully.

3. Why we process this data and on what legal basis

(GDPR Art. 6 terms; equivalents apply under UK GDPR, CCPA/CPRA, LGPD, PIPEDA, etc.)

  • Running the editorial workflow — performance of a contract / pre-contract, and legitimate interest in operating a scholarly journal.
  • Making accepted work permanently and openly accessible — legitimate interest in scholarly communication. Published metadata (see §5) becomes permanently public.
  • Site security and abuse prevention — legitimate interest (server logs, fraud prevention).
  • Contacting you about your submission or account — performance of a contract.
  • Newsletters or announcements — consent. You may withdraw at any time.

4. AI-assisted review — please read carefully

We disclose this plainly because it is unusual in academic publishing: at this stage of the journal's launch, review is conducted by the founding editor with substantial AI assistance (currently Anthropic's Claude models, accessed via the Anthropic API). This is not double-blind external peer review, and we do not describe it as such.

Practical implications for your data:

  • Your manuscript text, abstract, figures (where reduced to text), and reviewer-facing metadata may be sent to Anthropic's API to generate AI-assisted review feedback.
  • As of this notice's effective date, Anthropic's API terms state that inputs submitted via the API are not used to train Anthropic's models by default. We have not opted in to any training-data sharing.
  • We retain AI-generated review comments alongside the human editorial record.

If you do not wish your submission to be processed through an AI-assisted review pipeline, please contact us before submission.

5. Public metadata — what becomes permanently public

Accepted and published articles include metadata that is made openly available and indexed by third parties:

  • Author name(s), affiliation(s), ORCID iD (if provided), and corresponding-author contact if you choose to publish it.
  • Article title, abstract, DOI, and citation metadata.

This metadata is registered with Crossref (which assigns DOIs and distributes citation metadata broadly), and may be harvested by indexes such as Google Scholar, DOAJ, and other discovery services. Once registered with Crossref, this metadata is effectively permanent and cannot be fully retracted from third-party indexes even if an article is later withdrawn.

6. Other third parties that process your data on our behalf

  • Hosting: the site runs on a virtual server provided by RackNerd, LLC (United States). All site data is therefore stored on infrastructure located in the United States.
  • Email delivery: transactional email (account, submission, review notifications) is sent via smtp.gmail.com.
  • DOI registration and metadata distribution: Crossref (as in §5).
  • AI review pipeline: Anthropic, PBC (as in §4).
  • Indexing & discovery: Google Scholar, DOAJ, and similar services may crawl public pages.

We do not sell personal data. We do not share personal data with advertising or behavioural-analytics networks.

7. International transfers

Because the site is hosted in the United States, personal data of authors, reviewers, and readers outside the US is transferred to the US when you interact with the site. If you are in the EU, UK, or another jurisdiction that requires additional safeguards for international transfers, you should be aware that we cannot independently offer Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent measures beyond those provided by our hosting provider.

8. Retention

  • User accounts: retained for up to the lifetime of the journal or until you request deletion; inactive accounts may be reviewed periodically. Inactive accounts or accounts considered spam may be deleted at any time.
  • Submissions and editorial records: retained indefinitely as part of the scholarly record (standard practice in academic publishing). Published articles may also be immutably stored on CERN/Zenodo.org computers in Switzerland.
  • Web-server logs: 30–90 days.

9. Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:

  • access the personal data we hold about you;
  • correct inaccurate data;
  • request deletion ("right to erasure");
  • object to or restrict processing;
  • receive a copy of your data in a portable format;
  • withdraw consent (e.g., to newsletters) at any time;
  • lodge a complaint with your data protection authority (in the EU/UK, your national supervisory authority).

To exercise any of these rights, email wbcraytor@valuation-engineer.com. We may need to verify your identity before acting. Note that published article metadata (§5) is part of the permanent scholarly record and cannot be fully removed from third-party indexes.

10. Cookies

This site sets a session cookie required to keep you logged in. We do not set tracking, advertising, or analytics cookies. If we add analytics in the future, this notice will be updated and any required consent obtained.

11. Security

We use TLS (HTTPS) for all site traffic and standard access controls. No system is perfectly secure; in the event of a personal-data breach affecting you, we will notify you and the relevant supervisory authority as required by law.

12. Children

This site is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children.

13. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice from time to time. Material changes will be highlighted on the site and dated at the top.